February - the Free Presbyterian church of Scotland

Christianity in New South Wales 1800-30 41
Hear this parable. It is spring time, and yonder is a farmer walking the
furrows and sowing his seed. Those who know nothing of husbandry mock
him for his wastefulness with his grain. He is far too prodigal of good food.
He is the wise man, is he not, who locks his granary door and preserves his
corn? Why should he go and fling it into the cold, thankless earth? But wait
till the end of June, when the bloom is on the wheat; wait till July and August
have brought the months of harvest, and you shall see that he who gave his
wheat to die shall, amidst the shouts of “Harvest home”, be seen to have
been wise and prudent – while he who kept the door of his granary bolted,
through his sluggishness and selfishness, shall then be seen to be the madman,
for he has no harvest save a mass of tangled weeds.
Scatter your lives for others! Give yourselves up to Jesus. He who in this
respect hates his life shall find it, but he that keeps it shall lose it. Still, you
ungodly ones, if you live to yourselves, God will yet have glory, even out of
you. You shall not rob Him of His honour, nor tear a jewel from His throne.
God will be glorified by you and in you in some form or other. Your everlasting
lamentations, because of your great selfish mistakes, will vindicate
the wisdom and the justice of God to all eternity. In a future state, though
you gnaw the flesh of your right arms for very anguish and sorrow and
passion, you will be obliged to own that the warnings of the gospel are true
and that God is just. Your well-deserved griefs shall help to make up the
burden of that song which shall eternally celebrate the wisdom and goodness
of God, for you will have to confess that Jesus was right and you were
wrong, that to believe in Him and to be His disciple was the right thing, and
that to despise Him and to live to yourself was what He told you it would be:
destruction and ruin.
Christianity in New South Wales 1800-30
3. “Whatsoever Thy Hand Findeth to Do” 1
Calvin MacKenzie
o Government funding was available to build a place of worship in
NSydney when Lang arrived, so he set about raising subscriptions to
establish a Presbyterian church on the grant of crown land he was given on
the corner of Jamieson Street and York Street, in an area later known as
Church Hill. Governor Brisbane, from the same part of Scotland as Dr Lang,
1 Last month’s article described further developments in the State. It ended by referring to
the first Presbyterian minister in Sydney, John Dunmore Lang, who belonged to the west
of Scotland. This is the final section of a paper given to a Youth Conference in Australia.